Article to peruse on migration

Nation
Bird migration set to bring flu to U.S., experts warn
Wire reports
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.09.2006

Avian flu is likely to spread to birds inside the United States by midyear and could produce an epidemic among humans "at any time," said the U.N. official who monitors global efforts to fight the disease.
Wild birds migrating over the Arctic Circle from Africa and Europe in the next few months would carry the H5N1 virus to Alaska, said the official, David Nabarro, a physician with the World Health Organization.
The virus probably would be carried to the rest of the United States six months later when other birds that picked it up in Alaska migrated south.
The prediction, the first by a top global health official pinpointing when birds carrying the flu will reach the lower 48 states, was buttressed Wednesday by U.S. officials who said testing for bird flu will expand dramatically.
The federal government is planning to test five to six times as many birds this year alone as it has screened since 1998.
Much of the effort will focus on Alaska, where scientists worry that birds arriving from Asia — beginning next month — will bring in the H5N1 virus and pass it along to other birds, which will fly south this fall.
Scientists already had been watching for the deadly flu strain in wild birds in Alaska and North American migratory flyways. But the effort is being dramatically stepped up this year, said John Clifford, chief veterinarian for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is working with other agencies on the program.
Scientists will study live birds, others that are found dead or killed by hunters, and environmental samples that might carry the worrisome form of bird flu.
The goal is to test 75,000 to 100,000 live or dead birds this year, said Angela Harless of the USDA. At the same time, Clifford said, officials will continue to monitor other activities that may introduce the virus to the United States: importing and smuggling of birds.